You Know You Live in a Small(ish) Town When...

[LizzieMaine]

When nut jobs are called characters or eccentrics. Where the undertaker, blacksmith, wheelwright, carpenter, farrier, plumber et al, is the same guy.

Our prize eccentric was an elderly fellow known as "Donny Toot-Toot," who wandered the streets collecting deposit bottles. He was usually garbed in muck boots, work pants, a yellow raincoat, a wide paisley tie, and a greasy Red Sox cap, and carried his bottles in a canvas Army duffle bag slung over his shoulder. One day we were shocked to see Donny driving thru town at the wheel of a dilapidated old sedan -- a big land yacht type of thing that had been hot stuff twenty years earlier -- and he was leaning out the window as he drove, just ahead of a thick cloud of black exhaust smoke, and yelling TOOT! TOOT! TOOT!. He'd bought the car with the proceeds of his bottle picking, but apparently he couldn't afford a car with a working horn.

Another guy we called "Mister Microphone," and he'd stand by the side of the road holding up a long wooden dowel like he was Gene Rayburn hosting a game show, and talking into it a mile a minute as the cars went by. Nobody stopped long enough to hear what he was saying, but he was certainly quite animated about it.

And there was "Bible Man," whose schtick was that he would sit in his car, parked along Main Street, with the window rolled down, eyeing people as they walked by, and every now and then thrusting his arm out of the car with a large, heavy, tattered Bible in hand. He'd point it like a gun at people he selected according to criteria that only he knew, but he'd never say anything. He'd just glare and point.

And there was Billy Joe, a troubled young man who would wander into the grocery store with a black-and-white spotted goat tied to a greasy piece of clothesline. I don't remember Billy Joe fondly -- he robbed me at knifepoint on the street when I was eight years old -- and I wasn't surprised to hear about twenty years ago that he'd come to a violent and lonely end. But I do wonder what happened to the goat.

These were just the blue ribbon eccentrics. We also had more than our share of stumbling drunks, two-fisted brawlers, Yugoslavian sailors asking "where to find girls," no-account shiftless poolroom loafers (Hello "Dad,") and neighborhood troublemakers, but there were so many of these that none of them particuarly stood out. You had to really work at it to get noticed in our town.

 

[Inkstainedwretch]

When the nearby highway is known only as "the four-lane."

 

[2jakes]

Never had a soapbox "derby race" for the public to attend.
But we did built them and raced among ourselves all the time.
We made them from wood crates.
The steering was a rope attached to the front board that
held the front wheels.
The wheels came from old roller skates.
We were creative in building them, although not enough
to provide brakes.
I still carry scars from going downhill very fast
and the only stopping power was my body.

We also made slingshots from tree branches and
the sling was rubber from old discarded tire tubes.

When the store-bought paper kite tore up.
We'd use the Sunday newspaper to rebuild
a new one.
The store bought kite with the image of the
"man-on-the-moon" with that smirk on his face
was my favorite!

 

[LizzieMaine]

When the nearby highway is known only as "the four-lane."

And it's fifty miles away.

 

[2jakes]

My town was so small that fifty miles in any direction
put you in several other towns.

 

[2jakes]

So small was my town that the place of worship was used by different denominations
with each having a designated day.

 

[2jakes]

I never rode on a taxi because there were none in my small town.
Besides, every place was within walking distance.
I learned what a bus transfer was when we moved to a big city.

 

[sheeplady]

...when you're new to town, people come up to you and say, "hey you're so and so" complete with a biography and your address. You have no clue who they are. This repeats itself until you've encountered everyone in town.

... when you have a nickname/ tagline (hopefully flattering) used by everyone to describe you when people forget your name. "You know, that blue-shoed runner." "Ah, yeah, Sarah that lives on main." "That's the one, Sarah."

... when there's at least five landmarks used to identify locations around town that make no sense to outsiders. These must include identifying one house as belonging to a family that hasn't lived there in at least 2 decades ("the old smith house") and one landmark that was destroyed/ no longer there ("down by the old sliders bridge").

 

[green papaya]

...when you're new to town, people come up to you and say, "hey you're so and so" complete with a biography and your address. You have no clue who they are. This repeats itself until you've encountered everyone in town.

... when you have a nickname/ tagline (hopefully flattering) used by everyone to describe you when people forget your name. "You know, that blue-shoed runner." "Ah, yeah, Sarah that lives on main." "That's the one, Sarah."

... when there's at least five landmarks used to identify locations around town that make no sense to outsiders. These must include identifying one house as belonging to a family that hasn't lived there in at least 2 decades ("the old smith house") and one landmark that was destroyed/ no longer there ("down by the old sliders bridge").

this reminds me of the scene from the movie "STAND BY ME" when a group of boys from a small town in the late 1950's tries to take a short cut through a old junk yard / car wrecking yard and the owner scolds one of the boys and says he knows who he is and knows who his father is.

Milo: I know who you are. You're Teddy Duchamp. Your dad's a looney. A looney up in the nuthouse in Togus. He took your ear and he put it to a stove and burnt it off.

Teddy: My father stormed the beach at Normandy.

Milo: He's crazier than a shithouse rat. No wonder you're acting the way you are with a looney for a father.

 

[2jakes]

^^^^^
I believe every town had one of those old coots.

We had one that used to shoot at crows from his front porch
with a Red Ryder BB gun.

 

[green papaya]

scene from STAND BY ME in the junkyard, the old man says I know who you are, I know your fathers, and they're all going to get a call from me.

 

[2jakes]

This sums it up for me about small towns & friends when I was 12.

 

[52Styleline]

We had a scruffy old gentlemen in my town who ate his lunch in the town cafe every day. He wore ancient clothes and tied his pants up with a length of clothes line. He would sit at the counter and order his lunch then pull a napkin out of the holder and put a small of pile of salt on it, then fold it up and stick it in his pocket. He did the same with sugar and pepper...every day.

You would think he was a bum but he actually owned vast amounts of timberland that he had inherited from his grandfather and managed that timber wisely and profitably. He lived all alone in a huge old house his family had owned since the town was built but it didn't have a spot of paint on it and looked like the classic haunted house. In actuality, he was probably the richest man in town.

 

[GHT]

And there was Billy Joe, a troubled young man who would wander into the grocery store with a black-and-white spotted goat tied to a greasy piece of clothesline. I don't remember Billy Joe fondly -- he robbed me at knifepoint on the street when I was eight years old -- and I wasn't surprised to hear about twenty years ago that he'd come to a violent and lonely end. But I do wonder what happened to the goat.

It was probably his mistress, chances are she's bringing up a kid or two these days.

 

[sheeplady]

We had a scruffy old gentlemen in my town who ate his lunch in the town cafe every day. He wore ancient clothes and tied his pants up with a length of clothes line. He would sit at the counter and order his lunch then pull a napkin out of the holder and put a small of pile of salt on it, then fold it up and stick it in his pocket. He did the same with sugar and pepper...every day.

You would think he was a bum but he actually owned vast amounts of timberland that he had inherited from his grandfather and managed that timber wisely and profitably. He lived all alone in a huge old house his family had owned since the town was built but it didn't have a spot of paint on it and looked like the classic haunted house. In actuality, he was probably the richest man in town.

My great uncle was like this. He was wounded in his leg in one of the last battles in the Pacific and it never healed (having joined the navy and been at Pearl Harbor). He lived in an old house with a wood stove. Towards the end he was in a wheelchair and still chopped his own wood. When the floor started to go, he put newspaper's down. He died with like $100,000 in the bank and 500 acres. He was notoriously frugal with his money... more so frugal than rich. But in his four corners, he had more than anyone else.

Notably, when I graduated college he was the only one who sent me money from the family- $20. And a card. He read the dictionary every day and had always wanted to go to school but never got the opportunity to even finish high school.

 

[Inkstainedwretch]

When nobody lives in their own house. Everyone lives in "the old (fill in the blank) place." I once worked on the Census in Appalachia and when I inquired where, say, Jerry Lee Mullins lived I would invariably be told. "He lives in the old Jones place. Unless you mean the Jerry Lee Mullins that everyone calls Skeeter, he lives in the old Todd place."

 

[LizzieMaine]

And right along side that, you can always tell exactly how long someone has lived in a town by what they call the grocery store. "You need anything? I'm headin' over to Doug's/the Shop-n-Save/Hannafid's," and it's all exactly the same store.

 

[Willybob]

This hank Ketchum song gets it right

 

[belfastboy]

We had a scruffy old gentlemen in my town who ate his lunch in the town cafe every day. He wore ancient clothes and tied his pants up with a length of clothes line. He would sit at the counter and order his lunch then pull a napkin out of the holder and put a small of pile of salt on it, then fold it up and stick it in his pocket. He did the same with sugar and pepper...every day.

You would think he was a bum but he actually owned vast amounts of timberland that he had inherited from his grandfather and managed that timber wisely and profitably. He lived all alone in a huge old house his family had owned since the town was built but it didn't have a spot of paint on it and looked like the classic haunted house. In actuality, he was probably the richest man in town.

As a writer when I hear stories such as this I get a pang of regret that this man, and many others, had an interesting story to tell and it likely died with him.

 

[belfastboy]

Watching the Netflix doc "Badlands Texas" about a very small town in west Texas. A little slow on the story side but the characters are compelling. If they did not actually exist I would be hard pressed to believe they are real and not the product of a very active imagination.